1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a method and apparatus for selecting link entities in a touch screen based web browser environment. More particularly, the present invention relates to a method and apparatus for correctly selecting a corresponding link entity without an error touch of a user.
2. Description of the Related Art
Portable terminals such as mobile terminals, electronic schedulers, and personal complex terminals have become necessities of current society as a result of development by electronic communication industries. Portable terminals have developed into important means for information transmission, which information is quickly changing.
Portable terminal provide a variety of services on the basis of communication networks such as the widely used Internet. These services include an e-mail service, a remote computer connection service, a file transfer service, an Internet information search service, an Internet talking and discussion service, an electronic bulletin board service, a hypertext information reading service, etc. A touch screen is typically included as part of the portable terminal. When a finger of a user is in contact with the touch screen, the touch screen receives an input in accordance with a position that the users' finger contacted the touch screen. Thus, the touch screen helps the user to conveniently use the services available via the portable terminal.
However, because the portable terminal has been miniaturized and the services have become complex and diverse, it is increasingly difficult to use these services on the touch screen. For example, FIG. 1 illustrates an image displayed on a touch screen of a portable terminal, which image is used for selecting a corresponding link entity in a general web browser environment (e.g., webpage). Referring to FIG. 1, a user wants to come in contact with a corresponding link entity displayed on the image of the webpage and select the corresponding link with the user's finger, which finger is shown in dashed lines. If the link entity is selected, the current image is changed to a corresponding image such as a designated webpage image. However, because different link entities are concentrated around the selected link entity, the concentration of the link entities results in an error touch of the user.